The present invention relates to machines that are used in road construction, such as a milling machine. These machines may remove a layer or layers of old or defective road surfaces.
Typically, milling machines are equipped with a milling drum secured to the machine's underside. The drums are configured to direct milling debris toward a conveyer, which directs the debris to a dump truck to take off site.
A moldboard may be located behind the milling drum during operation and form part of a milling chamber that encloses the drum. The moldboard is configured to push milling debris forward with the machine. However, some debris, usually escapes underneath the bottom end of the moldboard leaving the recently milled surface too dirty to resurface. Failure to clean the milled surface before resurfacing may result in poor bonding between the new layer and the milled surface. Typically, a sweeper will follow the milling machine to remove the debris, but the sweeper is generally inefficient.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,621,018 by Libhart, which is herein incorporated by reference for all that it contains, discloses a machine having a debris-intake hood of the type designed to pickup or remove dust, particulates, and other debris from a road or pavement surface.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,733,086 by McSharry et al., which is herein incorporated by reference for all that it contains, discloses a vacuum system mounted on a portable milling machine for extracting material cut by the milling drum of the machine from the surface of a roadway.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,536,073 by Sulosky et al, which is herein incorporated by reference for all that it contains, discloses a drum assembly and parts of that assembly, for the milling of a roadway substrate to a fine texture. The invention also concerns a method for milling the roadway substrate to a fine texture.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,786,111 by Yargici, which is herein incorporated by reference for all that it contains, discloses an apparatus and method for delivering liquid coolant to drum mounted cutting tools.